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-   -   Objectively intelligent. (http://www.lawtalkers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=884)

Tyrone Slothrop 02-05-2020 04:50 PM

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 527105)
Fair enough. But it might be geographic. I think on the coasts and in many highly educated and affluent areas, the base very much does like that ad. So I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm saying YMMV, quite a lot, based on location.

Dude, even in very red states there are Democrats who will eat that ad up. If you think those people don't exist in your swing states, and that everyone is your mythical Reagan Democrat who just cares about lunchbox issues, you're wrong, but obviously nothing I say is going to change your mind, so whatever.

Adder 02-05-2020 04:55 PM

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 527102)
Then this is indeed the dumbest ad of all time. Mathematically, the Senate cannot convict. And since nobody is even really watching (again, generally, people don't care much about the impeachment), how any Senator votes will be forgotten in 3 days.

Do you seriously think a Senator is going to fear an attack ad on the basis his voters are going to decide whether to re-elect him ten months from now based on his impeachment vote? That's a bit... fanciful.

Try this message comparison on for size:

Senator Smith acquitted a con man who tried to squeeze dirt on his opponent from a foreign nation to help himself win re-election. Shame!

vs.

Senator Smith and his Republican colleagues in the House and Executive Branch have presided over the lowest unemployment rate in ___ years. Wages have grown for the middle class by ___ in the past two years! The economy is on the cusp of delivering even more for the middle class!

Which do you think wins in Joesixpackland?

James Carville would say it like this: "Stop with that yammerin' about impeachment! Ya fuckin' lost. And Nancy knew it was a dumb idea from the start. Beat the son of a bitch on the issues -- what you're going to do for people better than what he's doing. And shut the fuck up on the rest."

Okay, I'm back to thinking you are dumb.

Adder 02-05-2020 04:57 PM

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 527103)
There is no base or swing voter of value to be turned out using an ad about impeachment. The states that matter are filled with Ds who aren't interested in impeachment, Epstein, Khashoggi, etc.

Stipulated. Now try to figure out why someone put an ad on the internet yesterday, assuming they know that.

Please note that it's not running on TV in Pennsylvania in October.

Hank Chinaski 02-05-2020 04:59 PM

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 527098)
Who else is up for grabs, and how will this ad bring them over to a D?

I’ve shown you the math about 3rd party votes. A goal of this ad is to convince this ain’t a time to play games again. Your better point might be does it alienate swing votes?

sebastian_dangerfield 02-05-2020 05:32 PM

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 527108)
Stipulated. Now try to figure out why someone put an ad on the internet yesterday, assuming they know that.

Please note that it's not running on TV in Pennsylvania in October.

So this ad was aimed at GOP Senators and voters in states where GOP Senators are up for election this year? Is that the point?

OK.

That’s moronic.

But that’s not why the ad was made. I think that’s your dumb assessment of why the ad was made. I think Ty is correct in assessing the ad was made to get the base lathered. I disagree with him about whether the base in rust belt states cares about impeachment. He makes a good point that I am perhaps too certain in making an argument in the absolute where the strategy is all about degree. There he draws blood and makes a good point. You remain incoherent or deluded or both in suggesting this is targeted at senators.

sebastian_dangerfield 02-05-2020 05:48 PM

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Hank Chinaski (Post 527109)
I’ve shown you the math about 3rd party votes. A goal of this ad is to convince this ain’t a time to play games again. Your better point might be does it alienate swing votes?

The third party voter this time around is a Bernie Bro. Or someone like me, who isn’t swayed at all by this ad. I’m more inclined by this ad to see a straight up power game, quite honestly. I remain unswayed that we are in an existential crisis. I see a clown accidentally causing the curtain to be pulled back and the power game to seen in stark relief.

I think the real fear among those claiming concern Trump is an existential threat is that the stabilized system that has held together a system that delivered predictably for them is now shown to be bankrupt and designed to funnel money upward to professional classes like us at cost to those below. Between Bernie and Trump, they’ve shown neoliberal economics practiced by both right and left does not value or care about the success of the middle.

The little guy is learning how we of the top 10% have directed all the gravy to ourselves.

Your harping on 3rd patty voters is infused with a lot of self interest. Some see opportunity in change, in entropy. So please, don’t bullshit about this or any other time not being one in which to take chances. (I realize you’re not making that explicit point, but commenting that it’s the point of the ad. But you have made that point endlessly since 2016.)

ETA: I’m sympathetic, by the way. Keeping a status quo that delivers for the top 1-20% at cost of higher taxes to placate those losing out below is usually a good bet. You make far more on the gains accruing to asset holders than the taxes you pay to keep those rendered redundant by the trade policies and tech that delivers for you displaces. And you get to say you favor safety nets and you pay your “fair share.” And when the losers complain, you can tell them Adam Smith says that, while they’re fucked, their grandkids will enjoy the jobs of the future!

You know why so many middle class voters embrace Bernie and Trump? Neither is slow playing them. Trump’s actually been crazy enough to try to keep his promises, and Bernie’s admitting the middle is so fucked it needs democratic socialism. We who tsk tsk about how we need a sensible moderate like Joe are very obviously stating, “we want to keep our franchise, at the top.”

I don’t think the real middle class person is nonplussed about Trump. I think the somewhat affluent but still-has-to-work person who benefited from prior economic policies, particularly trade, is the person who’s exercised here.

Hank Chinaski 02-05-2020 06:28 PM

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 527111)
The third party voter this time around is a Bernie Bro. Or someone like me, who isn’t swayed at all by this ad. I’m more inclined by this ad to see a straight up power game, quite honestly. I remain unswayed that we are in an existential crisis. I see a clown accidentally causing the curtain to be pulled back and the power game to seen in stark relief.

I think the real fear among those claiming concern Trump is an existential threat is that the stabilized system that has held together a system that delivered predictably for them is now shown to be bankrupt and designed to funnel money upward to professional classes like us at cost to those below. Between Bernie and Trump, they’ve shown neoliberal economics practiced by both right and left does not value or care about the success of the middle.

The little guy is learning how we of the top 10% have directed all the gravy to ourselves.

Your harping on 3rd patty voters is infused with a lot of self interest. Some see opportunity in change, in entropy. So please, don’t bullshit about this or any other time not being one in which to take chances. (I realize you’re not making that explicit point, but commenting that it’s the point of the ad. But you have made that point endlessly since 2016.)

ETA: I’m sympathetic, by the way. Keeping a status quo that delivers for the top 1-20% at cost of higher taxes to placate those losing out below is usually a good bet. You make far more on the gains accruing to asset holders than the taxes you pay to keep those rendered redundant by the trade policies and tech that delivers for you displaces. And you get to say you favor safety nets and you pay your “fair share.” And when the losers complain, you can tell them Adam Smith says that, while they’re fucked, their grandkids will enjoy the jobs of the future!

You know why so many middle class voters embrace Bernie and Trump? Neither is slow playing them. Trump’s actually been crazy enough to try to keep his promises, and Bernie’s admitting the middle is so fucked it needs democratic socialism. We who tsk tsk about how we need a sensible moderate like Joe are very obviously stating, “we want to keep our franchise, at the top.”

I don’t think the real middle class person is nonplussed about Trump. I think the somewhat affluent but still-has-to-work person who benefited from prior economic policies, particularly trade, is the person who’s exercised here.

No mas

SlaveNoMore 02-05-2020 08:05 PM

Slave...and America...win again
 
I'm not bothering to read any of the pre-posted tripe. Sebby, did someone literally pay you off? Hank, you grifting again?

Americans just won again. And Trump is now assured another 5 years.

God bless America (at least ours. You socialist DBs can all fuck off)

SlaveNo(yes, I'm indeed laughing at all of you)More

sebastian_dangerfield 02-06-2020 08:46 AM

Re: Slave...and America...win again
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by SlaveNoMore (Post 527114)
I'm not bothering to read any of the pre-posted tripe. Sebby, did someone literally pay you off? Hank, you grifting again?

Americans just won again. And Trump is now assured another 5 years.

God bless America (at least ours. You socialist DBs can all fuck off)

SlaveNo(yes, I'm indeed laughing at all of you)More

Paid off by whom? I'm pretty much the only person here nakedly saying that a good bit of the hand wringing about this guy is folks talking their books. Ya think that's a kumbaya comment?

That's what's going on almost everywhere among the people who have brains, isn't it? "Oh shit... This fucking guy is fucking with trade, which fucks with finance, which fucks with profits that accrue to people like me. He's risking the future income of all but the very tippy tippy top of the top 10%."

The desperately poor are too damn busy trying to survive to write articles critiquing Trump. It's all done by an educated class, the one to which you and I belong. You know these people. They know that questioning neoliberal policies is a dangerous heresy to a system that butters their bread. This explains why you'll rarely hear a poor union steward griping about Trump. (To the contrary, they'll privately vote for him, because his economy and his tax plan has led to an uptick in building projects that profit them.) You won't hear a home health aide cry about Trump. Your plumber won't decry him. Your dentist won't. Nor will any real estate agent.

Who rants about him loudest? Blue state urban and suburban professionals and govt workers. Why is that? Is it because they're the smartest? The "elites"? No. (They like to think that, asserting that Trumpkins are all bitter anti-intellectuals.) But no, they're neither elites nor serious intellectuals. The real elites are far above them on the class ladder (and they laugh at them). It's because these blue and purple state upper middle class folk have skin in Trump's game. He fucks with their taxes. He potentially imperils with their livelihood. And he's dumb.

Oh yes... He's dumb. You cannot argue that. Cunning, ruthless, but also incredibly dumb. (He's winning everything because he's impossible to defend against. It's like playing basketball with a 7'1 guy who's drunk and on crystal meth. Shooting from perimeter? Driving? About to elbow you in the face? Throwing a skyhook from half court? WTF is next?)

Being dumb, he offends people who think being smart, and holding the values de jour of folks who think the New Yorker is well written, is of paramount importance. That he succeeds infuriates them.

I can say this because he infuriates me. I can only tolerate the man because I look at him as fascinating proof that being smart doesn't really matter all that much in politics or most businesses. He's our Chauncey Gardiner... And it's so comically crazy, he becomes tolerable. But I know people who know him, and I've even met some of his family, and I Would Not Be Interested in Spending Time With Him. At All. Nor would you.

So if you think I'm paid off and buying into the critiques I read here, I'm not. I agree with some, I disagree with others. I'm not aggressively for or against any candidate, really. My only interest is disintegrating all pretexts, of candidates and their voters.

Greedy,Greedy,Greedy 02-06-2020 10:02 AM

Re: Slave...and America...win again
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by SlaveNoMore (Post 527114)
I'm not bothering to read any of the pre-posted tripe. Sebby, did someone literally pay you off? Hank, you grifting again?

Americans just won again. And Trump is now assured another 5 years.

God bless America (at least ours. You socialist DBs can all fuck off)

SlaveNo(yes, I'm indeed laughing at all of you)More

Thanks for the periodic warning that Trumpers are assholes.

But we really didn't need it.

Adder 02-06-2020 10:57 AM

Re: Slave...and America...win again
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 527115)
I'm pretty much the only person here nakedly saying that a good bit of the hand wringing about this guy is folks talking their books.

Or maybe it's about the all the asylum seekers from central America whom we're sending back to Mexico, where they are not from, to wait in make-shift camps, where the Mexican government has no facilities to accommodate them they're being preyed upon by cartels. Or the kids in cages. Or the families being separated with inadequate record keeping to ever reunite them. Or the blanket ban on immigrants, now including from the largest county in Africa for basically no reason. Or the petty dictators he's propped up with unrepresented attention only to get pants in the subsequent negotiations. Or the allies he's abandoned and the American influence he's flushed down the toilet. Or how he's gutted environmental and safety standards.

Or, yes, the pointless trade war that he's both losing that is hurting farmers, workers and consumers.

There's nothing this guy is doing that is undermining the status quo in a way that helps the professional classes. Heck, his Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust recently said that over-enforcement risks harm to the merger markets, like that's a thing we're supposed to care about.

sebastian_dangerfield 02-06-2020 11:32 AM

Re: Slave...and America...win again
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Adder (Post 527117)
There's nothing this guy is doing that is undermining the status quo in a way that helps the professional classes.

That's my point. He's not helping the professional classes. And we're pissed about that. We're used to having a more robust SALT deduction. A lot of us were paid from, perhaps dependent upon, revenues from supply chains that have now been upset.

And we don't like very much that we're not respected as much as we were. We told everyone he was going to ruin everything (I believed that). Turns out the world didn't end, and the economy has actually done well under him. (Credit a considerable amount of that to Obama, but credit it also quite significantly to Trump.) ...Despite his doing a bunch of things we said would ruin it.

We liked being Brahmin. And now we're shown that a common lunatic can do all sorts of things from which we'd recoil and drive the economy even higher.

Kinda reminds me of Reagan. One can argue, of course, that like Reagan we're just running up huge debts. That's a good critique. But the reality seems to be, and you've said this many times yourself, public debt isn't a big deal. You're in good company, with Larry Summers and Joseph Stiglitz. If it was a good idea when they floated it years ago, why isn't it a good idea now? (Lemme guess... Because they said it should be done via govt spending, stimulus, rather than tax cuts. I'm not sure. Govt spending hasn't historically primed the pump very well since the New Deal, and even then it was temporary. Tax cuts, OTOH, seem to work. It's crazy, I know. But we're in crazy times, and we live grossly beyond our means anyway, so why not go Strangelove. Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Deficit?)

Tyrone Slothrop 02-06-2020 12:10 PM

Re: Slave...and America...win again
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield (Post 527118)
That's my point. He's not helping the professional classes. And we're pissed about that. We're used to having a more robust SALT deduction. A lot of us were paid from, perhaps dependent upon, revenues from supply chains that have now been upset.

And we don't like very much that we're not respected as much as we were. We told everyone he was going to ruin everything (I believed that). Turns out the world didn't end, and the economy has actually done well under him. (Credit a considerable amount of that to Obama, but credit it also quite significantly to Trump.) ...Despite his doing a bunch of things we said would ruin it.

We liked being Brahmin. And now we're shown that a common lunatic can do all sorts of things from which we'd recoil and drive the economy even higher.

Kinda reminds me of Reagan. One can argue, of course, that like Reagan we're just running up huge debts. That's a good critique. But the reality seems to be, and you've said this many times yourself, public debt isn't a big deal. You're in good company, with Larry Summers and Joseph Stiglitz. If it was a good idea when they floated it years ago, why isn't it a good idea now? (Lemme guess... Because they said it should be done via govt spending, stimulus, rather than tax cuts. I'm not sure. Govt spending hasn't historically primed the pump very well since the New Deal, and even then it was temporary. Tax cuts, OTOH, seem to work. It's crazy, I know. But we're in crazy times, and we live grossly beyond our means anyway, so why not go Strangelove. Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Deficit?)

He is doing a lot of long-term damage. When my kids go to visit Slave in the old-folks home, their kids are going to ask him why we didn't do more to stop climate change, and what it was like in the old days when it would sometimes snow in New York City in the winter, and there wasn't a huge seawall.

Then they'll get bored and ask for Paigow stories.

Tyrone Slothrop 02-06-2020 01:16 PM

Re: Objectively intelligent.
 
Suspect Sebby will applaud this for discouraging criminal investigations, even though it obviously increases the politicization of DOJ.

Unrelatedly: Also for Sebby, this re Michael Lind (thread links to interview).

Greedy,Greedy,Greedy 02-06-2020 03:55 PM

Re: Slave...and America...win again
 
Quote:

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop (Post 527119)
He is doing a lot of long-term damage. When my kids go to visit Slave in the old-folks home, their kids are going to ask him why we didn't do more to stop climate change, and what it was like in the old days when it would sometimes snow in New York City in the winter, and there wasn't a huge seawall.

Then they'll get bored and ask for Paigow stories.

This is not very realistic. No one is going to visit Slave in the old folks home.


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